Friday, 10th.—­ ...  I wrote to H——­ to beg her to come to me directly; I wish her so much to be here when my play comes out.  Went to the theater at a quarter to six.  The house was bad; the play, “Katharine of Cleves.”  I acted pretty well, though my dresses are getting shockingly dirty, and in one of the scenes my wreath fell backward, and I was obliged to take it off in the middle of all my epistolary agony; and what was still worse, after my husband had locked me in one room and my wreath in another, it somehow found its way back upon my head for the last scene.  At the end of the play, which has now been acted ten nights, some people began hissing the pinching incident.  It was always considered the dangerous passage of the piece, but a reasonable public should know that a play must be damned on its first night, or not at all.

     Saturday, 11th.—­ ...  A long walk with my mother, and a long talk
     about Shakespeare, especially about the beauty of his songs....

Tuesday, 14th.—­ ...  Read the family my prologue.  My mother did not like it at all; my father said it would do very well.  John asked why there need be any prologue to the play, which is precisely what I do not understand.  However, I was told to write one and I did, and they may use it or not just as they please.  I am determined to say not another word about the whole vexatious business, and so peace be with them....  In the evening a charming little dinner-party at Mr. Harness’s.  The G——­s, Arthur K——­, Procter (Barry Cornwall), who is delightful, Sir William Millman, and ourselves....  Dear Mr. Harness has spoken to Murray about John’s book, and has settled it all for him.  On my return home, I told John of the book being accepted, at which he was greatly pleased. [The book in question was my brother’s history of the Anglo-Saxons, of which Lord Macaulay once spoke to me in terms of the highest enthusiasm, deploring that John had not followed up that line of literature to a much greater extent.]

Wednesday, 15th.—­ ...  My father went to the opening dinner of the Garrick Club....  After tea I read Daru, and copied fair a speech I had been writing for an imaginary member of the House of Peers, on the Reform Bill.  John Mason called, and they sat down to a rubber, and I came to my own room and read “King Lear.” ...

Thursday, 16th.—­ ...  While I was at the Fitzhughs’ Miss Sturges Bourne came in, and she and Emily had a very interesting conversation about books for the poor.  Among other things Emily said that Lady Macdonald had written up to her from the country, to say that she wanted some more books of sentiment, for that by the way in which these were thumbed it was evident that they alone would “go down.”  Upon inquiry, I found that these “sentimental”